Game seeks to get students interested in public health

A D-V-D-based game developed by the University Hygienic Laboratory will soon be going out to thousands of schools in Iowa and nationwide. The game, “Did You See That,” is designed to get students in middle and high school — and in college — interested in the public health field.

Beth Hochstedler, the lab’s training and outreach coordinator, says they shot video interviews with a variety of staff members to assemble the game. Hochstedler says, “It’s based somewhat off the game ‘Scene It,’ where you have video clips and then answer science trivia questions and there is a game board and you can move on the game board to get to the different career paths in public health.”

The lab is making all of the clips available on the popular website YouTube, in addition to launching a page on the social networking website Facebook. Hochstedler says there are also plenty of free DVDs available for people like school counselors and science teachers.

She says they have 5,000 copies of the DVD that’ll go out, while the game is also available for free on-line via the University Hygienic Lab’s website at “www.uhl.uiowa.edu”.

Hochstedler says the primary goal is to attract students to the field of laboratory science. “Public health is facing a national workforce shortage with an estimated 250,000 job vacancies by 2020,” she says. The game was funded through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The University Hygienic Laboratory is Iowa’s environmental and public health laboratory, with facilities in Ankeny, Milford and at the University of Iowa’s Research Park in Coralville.